


Breathe

by Arial



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Hurt!Michael, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, protective!lucifer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-24
Updated: 2016-03-24
Packaged: 2018-05-28 20:50:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6344635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arial/pseuds/Arial
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Will you allow me to shelter your sorry ass from hell, brother?” said Lucifer, spreading his massive black wings to enclose Michael in their embrace. “Would you trust me with your own life?”<br/>Michael’s lips curled in a tired smile, as he let himself slide in Lucifer’s arms. “My life is the only thing I could ever trust you with, Lucifer.”</p>
<p>Michael put himself in danger to save his brother's life. Will Lucifer be able to return the favour?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breathe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Omano](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Omano/gifts).



_“When angels fall with broken wings_  
 _I can’t give up, I can’t give in._  
 _When all is lost and daylight ends_  
 _I’ll carry you and we will live forever, forever_  
 _forever, forever.”_  
(Angels fall – Breaking Benjamin)

 

 

The blood already clotting under his fingernails was warm, even if for no longer than a heartbeat. A mouth watering, copper-scented spurt of red from Sam Winchester’s very gut.

Lucifer savored it; he let it cloud his senses and sedate his hunger. It was not the boy’s blood that he lusted after, not his body that he pictured broken and mauled, scarred beyond recognition. It was Michael that Lucifer wanted. God’s first-born, the unyielding sword of Heaven. His older brother.

Oh, Lucifer could picture that long, pale neck under his hands; the delicate features drowned in bruises, those mendacious lips crushed under his knuckles. It would be as simple as tearing off the wings of a fly.

How deliciously his screams would echo in this so confining space; how crimson his blood would be against sickly white skin and once pristine feathers!

Lucifer’s hands were shaking so hard from his craving he had to stall them inside Sam’s bowels. A pained grunt erupted from the chapped lips of the boy as he curled onto himself in search of respite.

Lucifer caught beads of perspiration with his tongue – sweet drops of agony, fear and exhaustion – and smiled against Sam’s feverish forehead. “Thank you,” he whispered, clasping him, sustaining him. “If I just laid a hand on my brother, I wouldn’t be able to stop until he died.”

_And if he was to die_ , Lucifer wondered, _then what would be of me?_

He would defeat his brother in a combat, of that he was certain. Michael had been weakened by their prison: his powers were a pallid shadow of what they used to be; his will had crumbled, his fire extinguished. He was like an eagle left to rot inside a too small cage; a majestic predator who forgot the never-ending skies and its former pride.

Michael would never get used to Hell like Lucifer did: they were too different, the two of them, and Lucifer had already been rotten, when he first embraced his terrifying punishment.

Lucifer raised his gaze, following the steady sound of a heart pumping fire-tinted blood and the soft murmur of rustling feathers.

“The boy has died, brother,” said Michael, as he sensed Lucifer’s eyes on him. “Let him rest.”  

Lucifer let Sam slide out of his grasp. “A foolish advice coming from that delicious mouth of yours, Michael: deprived of my plaything I’d become restless, and who do you think would get the blunt of my wrath then?”

His older brother looked at him; his eyes remained distant, but a sweet smile curved his lips. “You got another, if I’m not mistaken; besides, you of all creatures should be aware of what happens to ill-kept possessions.”

Lucifer smiled, too, as he walked toward Michael. His teeth were bared, his hands bloody. “I will never let go of what’s mine again. Never” he whispered, tracing that despicable – and yet so loved – face with frigid fingers. Michael shivered under that light touch, but after a moment his body stilled. 

“I am afraid that your conviction will be proven untrue, child.”

Lucifer’s heart trembled at those soft-spoken, yet sarcastic words. He let his hand linger on Michael’s lips for a second longer before he turned to face the creature behind them.

He dreaded the icy emptiness of his prison, but Michael was to be saved: his brother didn’t belong there, that at least he knew.

What his surprise was at seeing Death’s bony fingers clasped around his prey! It was Sam Winchester that he wanted. Not Michael, not Lucifer himself, just that mauled and filthy beast.

“He is mine,” he said in a cold hiss. “He was mine before leaving the womb, he’s even more so now that I gave him a new life. He’s still covered in afterbirth, can’t you see?”

“Enough with the tantrum. I don’t want to be the one to give your father such grief, but you have a talent to get on my nerves.”

Death shook his head, as he let go of Sam and took a step toward him.

Lucifer bared his sword. “If you think that I am afraid of you then—”

 “You _are_ afraid of me, child, and rightfully so,” grimaced the eldest horseman, as if those words were leaving a bad aftertaste in his mouth. “You and your brother and your whole fam—”

Death drew a pained breath in, his pinched face growing even paler. He spit blood in the dirt. “You ought to be desperate to forget your honor in such a way, Michael,” he rattled, extracting a blade out of his back.

Michael pulled himself away. “Leave my brother alone. You already have what you came to collect.”

Between Death’s fingers and under Lucifer’s horrified gaze Michael’s sword broke into pieces. A soft whimper escaped his brother’s mouth, almost out of his own volition, and Michael fell on his knees.

“Such a magnificent weapon,” whispered Death, kneeling beside him. “Your father forged it the same day he created you; a shiny thing for his little soldier, or at least that’s what I thought at the time.” He caressed Michael’s ashen face, forcing the archangel to look him in the eyes. “But it was so much more, child. It was designed to keep you safe, to bathe you in Heaven’s glory were you in the midst of a battle or in Hell’s deepest corner.”

Michael’s gaze was unfocused, his skin covered in cold sweat. He was struggling to keep up with Death’s speech; that much was clear.

“There isn’t a chance that something as pure as you could survive a place like this,” went implacably on the horseman. “Not out of your father’s protection.”

Michael’s head bobbed as he was nodding. He then screwed his eyes shut and slid in Death’s embrace. The horseman smiled a small, crestfallen smile. “Next time I will enter this prison, it will be for you, and it won’t be long. I’m sorry, Michael. I really am.”

“Get your filthy hands off of my brother now!” threatened Lucifer. “I don’t have whatsoever purity to protect and I am not afraid to get dirty. Leave him or you are as good as dead, I swear it.”

Death sighed as he stood to his full height. “What did I say about quitting your tantrum? Are you so afraid of being alone? It is strange; you should be used to it by now.” He looked at Sam’s tarnished soul and back at Lucifer again. “Don’t worry, child,” he said, a devious smile forming on his thin lips, “you won’t ever be alone again.”

Lucifer felt cold at once. Goosebumps blossomed on his skin; his lips and fingernails turned blue while the air in his lungs became solid. “What…?” he whimpered, clasping his own throat with lax fingers. “What…?” he repeated, feebly, as his knees buckled under him and darkness engulfed his vision.

When he could muster enough strength to raise his head Death had disappeared with Sam. Lucifer crawled to Michael. His brother was unconscious, but he was still breathing.

“I don’t know about you, but I am quite sure he’s going to die.”

Lucifer was agape. No, it couldn’t be.

“You’re not here, not anymore.”

Sam smiled, bright and cruel. He was whole again. “Am I not?”

He started laughing.

 

*  *  *

 

Lucifer was caressing Michael’s damp hair. His eyes were screwed shut, his teeth clenched near the shattering point.

That damned thing was speaking still. It had never stopped. Lucifer had tried subduing its voice with his own to no avail; he had just screamed himself hoarse. Severing his ears off in a paroxysm of rage had proved as much futile: he had just deprived himself of Michael’s even breathing, the only thing currently keeping him sane.

Oh, he would never forget that beast taunting him. _He stopped breathing_ , it had said. _He’s dying, can’t you see? Can’t you hear?_

It had taken him no more than a few instants to heal, but they had been long. Eternal. When he had at least rested a bloody ear on Michael’s cold lips, there were tears in his eyes and a foreign ache in his heart.

“Don’t you ever leave me,” he whispered. “Not like this, not again.”

Michael’s eyelids fluttered open. He looked beyond tired and completely out of it, but something in his eyes told Lucifer that he had understood his words.

“Your begging, you mean,” said Sam, matter-of-factly. “I wouldn’t count on that: your prayers roll fast off his back, they always did.”

When Lucifer kept staring at his brother, Sam just huffed and shut his mouth at once. He was patient, more patient than Lucifer ever was.

“Is he gone?” asked Michael in a paper-thin voice.

Lucifer nodded. “He is. For now.”

“Forever, if I have any say on the matter.” Michael smiled a stubborn, infuriating smile. “I don’t break as easily as my sword, brother.”

He then tried to stand, but his legs gave under him.

“You shouldn’t have done it,” whispered Lucifer, catching his brother before he hit the ground. “I can fend for myself.” He shook his head, digging his fingers more deeply in Michael’s arm, wanting nothing more than to destroy him before Hell could. “What you did changes nothing. I can’t forget. I can’t forgive.”

Michael disentangled himself from Lucifer’s grip. “I don’t want your forgiveness: you are the one at fault.” He paused, closing his eyes for the briefest moment. “But it’s not my place to judge you, or to carry out our father’s sentence. We are brothers, I shouldn’t have forgotten that.”

“Will you allow me to shelter your sorry ass from hell then, _brother_?” said Lucifer, spreading his massive black wings to enclose Michael in their embrace. “Would you trust me with your own life?”

Michael’s lips curled in a tired smile, as he let himself slide in Lucifer’s arms. “My life is the only thing I could ever trust you with, Lucifer.”

“How touching, I have tears in my eyes!” exclaimed Sam, mockingly. “It’s such a shame that your little snowflake is going to die anyway: too pure to survive this evil, filthy hole.”

Lucifer raised his head, the ghost of an idea forming on his face. “You’re right,” he murmured. “He’s too pure, but it can be easily changed.”

Michael looked at him in confusion. “Are you talking with someone I cannot see?”

“As a matter of fact, I am.” Lucifer smiled, barely able to contain his trepidation. “You’re not going to like it, but I know how to save you. My blood will taint you if—”

“If I ingest it.” Michael finished the sentence for him. He was horrified. “No, Lucifer, I won’t. I’d rather die.”

“He turned down your proposal of making him a junkie, how shocking!”

Lucifer closed his eyes, trying to shut out Sam’s hideous voice and to suppress the urge of making Michael’s wish come true ahead of time. “Just listen to me! The effects… My blood is not able to change you, not permanently.” He caressed Michael’s cold cheek with the back of his hand. “But it will buy us some time. Please, Michael, some more time, that’s all I am asking.”

_Don’t make me force you, ‘cause I would. I will, if you compel me to._

Sam sneered like he was reading him far too well, but said nothing. Michael slowly nodded. “Just this once, brother,” he caved in in a small voice. “I don’t want to buy a life more terrifying than death itself.”

Lucifer sliced his wrist open and offered it to his brother. Michael accepted it slowly, his eyes clouded by the shadows of ancient memories.

The younger urged him. “Michael.”

It was a warning, a promise.

Michael shook his head, the faintest smile on his face. “Your smell has changed,” he quietly said. “There is something in you that resembles this very place.”

He rested his lips on the wound and kissed it tenderly; his moist breath had Lucifer shiver like his blade never could. He then started drinking, while Lucifer’s fingers sank in his hair.

It was long minutes later that Michael stopped, when the younger’s breathing became shallow and his pulse weakened.

“No more,” he breathed, resting his heavy head on Lucifer’s chest. “You need it. No more, no more.”

He was shivering; Lucifer quieted him with a kiss to his temple. “Hush, brother,” he murmured against sweaty hair and feverish skin. “I got you.”

Michael’s abdomen convulsed, his throat closed. He dry-heaved against his trembling hand, while Lucifer’s fingers anchored him to consciousness.

When he ultimately raised his tear-streaked face, there was pinkish spit on his lips and a dull light in his eyes.

“I don’t feel any different,” he muttered, barely awake.

“Give it some time,” replied Lucifer. “Rest now.”

Lucifer’s soft singing lulled Michael to sleep in moments, as Sam’s watchful eyes lingered on them both.

 

* * *

 

Lucifer was looking at his prison with something akin to desperation in his eyes; never before that cage had been so eerie and suffocating. So dreadful.

In Hell’s deepest corner, surrounded by ice and hatred and sorrow, the Devil dreamed of the Sun: its weightless rays warming his brother’s skin; its light painting green eyes shadowed by the everlasting night of the Abyss.

Absent-mindedly stroking Michael’s face Lucifer made him swallow some more blood. The eldest’s eyelids trembled, but he didn’t wake.

Sam made no comment this time, he had no need to: he could feel Lucifer’s self-doubt, the fear radiating off of him like sour poison. He smiled to himself in that place quiet like a tomb.

It was hours or years later that Michael roused. He raised his head slowly; the purplish bruises under his eyes and the old blood smeared on his lips were the only trace of color left on him.

“Michael,” asked Lucifer, afraid of that alien light in his brother’s irises, “are you feeling any better?”

The eldest didn’t answer. He just closed his eyes and seized Lucifer’s lips.

Michael’s breath was cold and coppery, but his flesh was as familiar and welcoming as it had been in the Garden. Lucifer could feel himself letting go: the hands clasping at his face and shoulders were melting the ice under his skin, the body grinding against his own was shattering a lifetime of certainties. “Michael,” he brokenly whimpered, just before his brother’s teeth closed on his neck.

At first, the younger was too shocked to react: Michael was on top of him – the brother he idolized was on top of him – sucking his blood as ravenous and lost as a vampire. After a moment, Lucifer threaded his fingers in Michael’s hair. He didn’t say anything, he couldn’t say anything. He just stayed there, waiting for the eldest to stop.

Excruciating minutes later, Michael did. He pulled himself away abruptly; his gaze was clear again, albeit laced with self-disgust and shame.

The younger made to touch, to comfort his brother, but Michael stopped him. “Don’t,” he ordered, before turning his head to the side and rejecting all the blood Lucifer had him to ingest.

Lucifer looked at Sam, and the boy held his stare with a meaningful sneer: they both knew what was going to come.

“Michael,” started Lucifer, “I am sorry.”

The eldest shook his head. “Nothing of this is your fa–”

“I am sorry that my blood wasn’t enough,” carried on Lucifer, as if Michael never spoke. “I am sorry for what I have to do now.”

“I can still feel it, you know?” said Michael in a low, thick voice. “Your blood, running through my veins like a poison, like… like a curse!” Pale eyes looked at Lucifer in surrender, in pride. “I don’t want your salvation, brother. Not when it means becoming…”

Lucifer rose to his feet, a feral smile uncovering his teeth. “Becoming what, Michael? Say it.”

He crouched by his brother, and the eldest diverted his gaze. “Lucifer…”

“SAY IT!” screamed Lucifer, and Hell covered in fear. Everything around him froze; ice blossomed on Michael’s hair and skin. Still it was just pity that his older brother reserved for him. Pity and sadness, maybe guilt.

“A monster,” he finally said. “I don’t want to become a monster.”

Lucifer smiled again, before kissing Michael’s frigid lips. When Michael started trembling in their embrace, the younger tightened his hold. “You should have by now realized that I do not care of what you want,” whispered Lucifer against his brother’s mouth. “I never had and I never will, Michael.”

Michael tried to free himself using every weapon at his disposal – fists, nails, teeth – but Lucifer’s arms were unmovable. The eldest screamed in rage.

“Hush, brother,” hummed Lucifer, looking at something behind Michael, “you will only hurt yourself and I can’t have it.”

He kissed Michael’s temple tenderly, before smashing his head against the unyielding soil of their shared prison. One, two, three times. Lucifer only stopped when his hands became red; when Michael went still and lifeless under him.

He then lowered himself on top of his brother.

 

*  *  *

 

Lucifer had been picturing that moment for centuries. Separated from his home, alone and hurting, he had often dreamt of breaking his older brother.

Oh, his victory would have tasted like ashes, without him destroying his Father’s perfect soldier in every possible way!

In his memories – distorted from rage and blackened by Hell’s fire – sadness had left Michael’s green orbs, replaced by scorn and indifference and contempt; his sorrowful voice had become haughty, his pleas insults.

It was just his madness speaking, deep down Lucifer knew. Deep down, he had wanted nothing more than for Michael to choose him.

_Choose me, be mine! Please, brother. Please!_

But the only thing he could claim as his own had ultimately been a cold body. Exhausted, feverish, bloody, Michael had remained unconscious through the whole ordeal, while Lucifer had pushed and pushed, looking for that fire he had foolishly come to think nothing could ever extinguish.

Now Lucifer was observing his brother’s fitful rest from a distance; a shard of Michael’s sword firmly pressed against the tender flesh of his palm, Sam’s oily voice a constant reminder of what he had just done.

_Look at him now, look at your proud brother: covered in blood and seed, all his defenses crumbled! You enjoyed it, didn’t you? Hurting him, taking him, RAPING HIM._

Lucifer closed his eyes and covered his ears, a single tear running down his cheek. It wasn’t what he wanted, it wasn’t ever that…

“Stop beating yourself up, brother,” Michael quietly mocked him. “Contrition never looks believable on you, anyway.”

Lucifer raised his face and looked at the eldest; Michael was smiling, tender and warm. Forgiving. On shaking legs, Lucifer walked the distance between them.

“Don’t,” he whispered. “Don’t do that.”

Michael shook his head. “What am I doing, Lucifer?”

“I don’t want your forgiveness.” He closed crimson hands – hands used to maul and kill and torture – on Michael’s lifeless face with a gentleness long forgotten. “I want you to keep fighting.”

“Before He created you, Father showed me the universe… The worlds He was shaping, all the different specimens He was crafting.” Michael’s eyes were clouded and distant, his voice barely above a whisper. He smiled. “I felt lonely, you know. All that there is to roam and I was on my own... So I made myself a companion, a friend. He had long, black wings to fly with me; they were like that of a bat. And his flesh… it was strong, resistant, made of fire.”

When Lucifer softly laughed, Michael stopped at once and stared at him. “What?” he asked perplexed.

A wide grin split the younger’s face in two. “Nothing, brother, it’s just that you went and made yourself a dragon pet. It’s funny, all things considered.”

 “If you say so, brother.” Michael smiled too, but it quickly morphed into a grimace. “I never gave him a name, ‘cause there was no need for words between us: I could sense him wherever he was, feel his heart as it was mine. Imagine my worry… my confusion, when I suddenly couldn’t hear it any longer.” The eldest’s fingers twitched in rage, his pale cheeks tingeing of red again. “It was all over, when I arrived. There was so much blood, at that time I couldn’t believe a body contained so much. And in the midst of that carnage, our Father. He was so collected, so impassible. ‘Father,’ I cried, ‘what happened?’ And He smiled at me, covered as He was in blood and gore and death. ‘Michael,’ He said, ‘there was a mistake in your creation and I corrected it.’ I shook my head, trembling from head to toe. ‘What mistake, Father? I don’t understand.’ He looked at my friend one last time, before fixing His eyes on me. ‘Everything that exists must perish, Michael. Everything. You created a monster, an abomination. I know that you’re hurting, and I am sorry for that, but it’s a lesson you had to learn.’ I took a step back, then. Or maybe I didn’t, I can’t remember so clearly. All that I do remember is me contradicting Him. ‘That’s not true, Father’ I said. ‘I exist and I cannot die.’ He smiled again, so crestfallen, so mournful, so… so paternal! ‘You will perish too, my son. It’s the way life is.’ He came and caressed my cheek with a bloody hand. I was sure He was going to kill me as well, that I was going to die, there and then. He created you that same day.”

Lucifer stayed silent for a moment, after Michael’s long speech. “Why?” he asked, when he couldn’t bear the sound of his own thoughts any longer. “Why tell me all this now?”

Michael’s sad eyes dug into Lucifer’s very soul. “From that moment on,” he calmly answered, “I always believed that my death would have been like my friend’s; that I would have died alone and scared, in a pool of my own blood.” He took the younger’s cold hands into his, the softest smile on his lips. “But I am not, Lucifer. I am not alone, and I am not scared, and all of this ‘cause I am here, with you.”

“No, you cannot die!” said Lucifer, claiming his brother’s lips, holding onto him with all the force of his desperation.  “You won’t. Promise me that you won’t, Michael.”

“Don’t ask me that,” pleaded Michael in a frightened voice, like that of a child. “I… I don’t wanna let you down. Not again, not on this.”

Lucifer’s fingers sank into Michael’s flesh in yet another attempt to anchor him to life. “Just stay awake, okay? For as long as you can. I will figure things out, I promise.”

Michael smiled with relief plain on his face. “You are so warm,” he sighed, sliding in Lucifer’s arms. “So warm.”

The younger just held him, unable to say anything. When he ultimately raised his head and looked Sam in the eyes, he read pity on the boy’s face.

He hated him like never before.

 

*  *  *

 

Lucifer caressed Michael’s hair, a small smile on his face.

“I know that you’re awake, but…”

_I need to hear your voice_.

A heartbeat passed. Then another one.

“Michael?”

Lucifer closed his eyes for the briefest moment. It eventually happened: nested into his arms, Michael had fallen asleep.

 

*  *  *

 

Lucifer could feel it, the moment his brother stopped breathing. The body he was holding seemed to become lighter, while his own heart turned to stone.

He raised his face to Sam, but the boy too had vanished. It really wasn’t a surprise when a second later the cage opened.

“I am sorry, child,” said Death, sitting in front of him. When Lucifer simply nodded, the horseman closed a grey hand on Michael’s forehead. “Look at him,” he went on, a heartfelt smile on his thin lips. “He left this world in a quiet sleep, cradled in the arms of the one he loved the most. You should be grateful you had the chance to say goodbye on such terms, especially given your history. But now it’s time to let go.”

Lucifer said nothing; he just opened his left hand and showed to Death what was resting on his palm. For a fleeting moment, the horseman was too taken aback to speak, but when he ultimately did, every trace of compassion had left his voice.

“He wouldn’t ever forgive you this.”

Lucifer shrugged. “I don’t care.”

“Of course you don’t,” whispered Death. “Stripped of your power and grace, stripped of your pride and arrogance, you’re nothing more than a scared, helpless, selfish child.”

“He would do the same,” Lucifer insisted weakly.

Death laughed. “Keep telling yourself that, but deep down you know the truth: he wouldn’t. Only a monster would buy something like that and call it a life. Only a monster would do that to his flesh and blood brother.”

Lucifer closed a pale hand on his sword. “Will you try to stop me?”

“I won’t” said the horseman, standing to his feet. “It’s none of my business.”

“Okay,” murmured Lucifer in a relieved breath. “Okay.”

He kept repeating that for a long time, after Death left the cage.

 

*  *  *

 

The sword shard had a strange weight in his hand. When Michael held it, the steel had been shining, unblemished; now it was black in color, tarnished, rotten.

Lucifer could feel it dimly pulse against his skin, slow and rhythmic like a heart. It had no blood inside, but hatred and ice and death. Lucifer’s very grace.

He rested it on Michael’s still chest and pressed, pressed, pressed until flesh and bones gave under metal; until the shard was nested inside his brother’s heart.

“Breathe,” he ordered.

Michael’s body convulsed; his eyes wide open as he desperately coughed. After long seconds, he slid back in Lucifer’s arms.

His pulse gradually slowed, his breath normalized. Lucifer kissed his brother’s half-closed lips; they were scarlet and coppery, unmoving.

Lucifer looked at his own reflection inside Michael’s pale eyes, and smiled.

“You are mine, now. Forever.”

Michael kept staring blankly ahead, oblivious of his brother and of the cage around them. Lucifer was sure he was dreaming of home.

**Author's Note:**

> ~ this story is for you, Omano: thank you for always helping me out and for being a friend so sweet. I love you, hon ♥  
> I'm not a native speaker, so I owe you all an apology for my cringe-worthy English... but somebody had to hurt them, plain as it is, so if it's not you, it had to be me :P


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